How to unsubscribe from emails – Inbox Decluttering done right

Declutter your inbox!

As you sign up for new apps and services almost every other day, you also end up subscribing to emails for a plethora of such services, knowingly or unknowingly. Sometimes, this extends to a degree where it can be quite overwhelming to keep a tab on the incoming emails, and you end up with a cluttered inbox, filled with all sorts of emails. From reminders for upcoming eCommerce packages to alerts for some ongoing offers on the subscription of a service to a random, unsolicited spam mailing list you have no clue of.

While the very thought of thinking about de-cluttering your inbox can in itself be quite tedious, taking the time out to unsubscribe to every single email seems like an aloof thought initially. So, to help you get rid of the clutter and unsubscribe from unwanted emails, in this article, we list down a few solutions to simplify the process.

Before diving right into the solutions, one thing you need to keep in mind when it comes to unsubscribing emails is that, in a lot of instances, especially when the source of the email is unknown or appears spammy, you must avoid clicking the “Unsubscribe” button. Primarily because, in a majority of the cases, when you hit the unsubscribe button, the spammer can acknowledge a confirmation about the validity of your email address. And this, in the worst-case scenario, can potentially prove to be of help to those with fraudulent intentions and lead to negative consequences for you.

I. Unsubscribe to emails using Gmail’s built-in utility

In case you are unaware, Google added the unsubscribe utility in Gmail some time back, which puts a button right below an email to help you unsubscribe from it. The option is only available on the web version of Gmail, and as you can observe, the process is manual and a bit tedious if you need to unsubscribe from multiple emails in one go. However, if you don’t have a lot of emails or want to avoid granting access to your account to a third-party application, you can head to your inbox and unsubscribe from emails manually.

Steps:

1. Go to Gmail and log in to your account. 2. Head to the inbox and tap on the email you wish to unsubscribe. 3. Here, hit the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email.

Once that’s done, the browser will open a new tab with the website for the service you just unsubscribed to. In most cases, you should be unsubscribed from the app/service by now. However, if you’re not, you might need to enter your login credentials before the service unsubscribes you from its mailing list.

II. Unsubscribe to emails using Unroll.Me

The above method is a secure way to deal with unsubscribing emails. And as already mentioned, it is an ideal solution for when you have to unsubscribe to just a handful of emails. But when it comes to an unending list of subscriptions, the best way to go about unsubscribing is by using a third-party application.

Although there are several apps and services that promise to help you mass-unsubscribe from emails, only a few of them actually seem to work. Furthermore, filter them by price, and you barely have a few good services in hand that promise a straightforward experience, without compromising on privacy.

The service we recommend using is Unroll.Me. For those unaware, Unroll.Me has been in the news for quite some time in the past — for not so good reasons. Basically, the service did not live up to its promises of keeping the user data private and went about selling user data to other companies. However, the situation was finally settled last year, and Unroll.Me was asked to delete all email receipts it collected over time. So, as of now, we can use the service to unsubscribe from emails without having to worry about privacy issues. Furthermore, to ensure it does not have access to our data behind our back, we can revoke the permission as soon as we are done unsubscribing emails.

Steps:

2. On the next screen, select Sign in with Google and enter the login credentials.

3. Complete the setup process by generating an app password, and enter it to confirm your identity.

4. Next, hit Start Editing to allow the service to pull up all the email subscriptions for your account.

5. Tap the Unsubscribe button to the right of the service you want to unsubscribe to.

6. Finally, hit Finish Editing.

You should now be unsubscribed from the emails you selected in the service. Besides, at this point, if you happen to unsubscribe from some important emails unintentionally, you can revert the changes and get subscribed again.

Further, to be on a safer side and ensure the service no longer has access to your email, you can revoke its access to your information. Here’s how.

Steps:

1. Head over to your Google Account and select Security from the options present on the left.

3. Now, scroll down to the Signing in with Google section and tap on Unroll.me to expand the options.

4. Finally, hit the REMOVE ACCESS button next to Unroll.me.

You are now unsubscribed from the unwanted mailing lists and should have revoked access to your account if you used the Unroll.me service. Although the process seems a bit tedious, it is completely worth going an extra step to ensure the service does not retain access to your account information when not in use.

III. Unsubscribe to emails using Gmail Unsubscriber (by labnol)

If you are still not convinced with Unroll.Me on the security front and the typical unsubscribe option in Gmail (from the first method) sounds too tedious for your use case scenario, there is one more way to unsubscribe to emails. This one comes from labnol — a blog dedicated to offering tech guides, tutorials, and a plethora of Google scripts for different needs, and is called Gmail Unsubscriber. Essentially, it is a Google script that parses your inbox for bulk emails and does the tedious job of looking for an unsubscribe link for each email on your behalf. Once found, it opens the link and unsubscribes your email.

One of the advantages of Gmail Unsubscriber over Unroll.Me or any other third-party email unsubscriber service is that it does not require you to agree to a plethora of permissions, unlike some of the other services. Thus, ensuring your privacy is not compromised. Besides, another plus point with the service is that you can add emails to the unsubscribe queue using any email client on any device.

Steps:

1. Hit this link to copy the Gmail Unsubscriber Google sheet to your Google Drive and sign in to your Google account.

2. On the next screen, you will see a prompt asking you to create a copy of the Google sheet. Here, hit the Make a copy button.

3. Now, tap on the Gmail Unsubscriber button on the toolbar (next to Help) and select Configure.

4. Next, you will be asked to authorize the Script. Hit Continue, and on the next screen, hit Advanced and tap on Go to Gmail Unsubscribe (safe). On the next prompt, click Allow.

5. Now, in the pop-up box, enter a new label name (if you wish to change it from the default Unsubscribe label) and hit Save configuration.

6. Finally, head over to Gmail and label the emails you want to unsubscribe to as Unsubscribe.

Once done, you will see the emails you labeled as Unsubscribe listed in the Gmail Unsubscriber Sheet, with details such as Status, Message Subject, Link, Message Sender, Unsubscribe Link/Email. Ideally, you should be unsubscribed from the labeled emails and have them appear in the list in 10-15 minutes.

That’s it!

You can now use any of the three methods mentioned above and unsubscribe from the unwanted emails. A good practice is to check back on your subscriptions every once in a while — that way, you don’t end up with an exhaustingly long list of email subscriptions to unsubscribe to.